Elle

Now in his seventies, there’s nothing new about Paul Verhoeven’s role as a provocateur, so I went in to Elle fully prepared for a unique cinematic experience. Or at least I thought I was prepared — I was dead wrong, as it turns out. The term bizarre doesn’t begin to do this film justice. I’m still struggling to find the words to adequately describe what Elle is, and what it’s trying to accomplish as a piece of filmmaking. The closest I’ve been able to come so far would be to say that it’s a film that challenges sexual mores and traditional conceptions of gender roles with a sense of humor so dark that, for some, it may be completely overshadowed by the more salacious plot points. It’s definitely not a movie for everyone — which is to say, it’s every inch a Verhoeven.

From the opening frames, it’s clear that the director’s aim is to both transgress and titillate. As the titles roll, the sounds of a violent sexual encounter are heard in medias res. A cat looks on impassively as the audience is witness to the final stages of a woman having just been raped by a masked intruder. The woman is Michèle Leblanc (Isabelle Huppert), and her reaction will set the tone for the rest of the film — rather than cry out for help or call the police, she calmly disposes of her clothes, cleans the room in which she was violated, and goes on with the rest of her day. Her incomprehensibly blasé attitude persists throughout the ensuing two hours of screen time, but not without a few cracks showing in the facade.

It’s in these cracks that the film gets interesting, as the narrative environs surrounding our protagonist seems just as strange as she is herself. Screenwriter David Birke, working from a novel by Philippe Djian, gradually reveals a world populated almost exclusively by unlikable characters with hidden agendas. This all sounds like the setup for a pretty conventional psychological thriller, and there are certainly elements of Hitchcock or Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom on display here — but that would be far too simple for a late-period Verhoeven film. Elle is distinguished from its genre brethren by a pitch-black sense of humor that evokes Bunuel at his most nihilistic, and I found myself laughing out loud on multiple occasions in spite of my reservations.

Those reservations stem largely from the film’s treatment of women, an aspect of Verhoeven’s oeuvre which has long drawn critical ire. But somehow the film manages to be even harder on its male characters — all of which are uniformly ineffectual — and despite the protagonist’s sexual objectification and victimization at the hands of these men, she is constantly the most effectively active character on the screen, never seeming to lose control of any situation. It is, to say the least, a perplexing ontological position, and is the most likely indication of what Verhoeven is trying to say with this film. Huppert plays this role to the hilt, and there can be no doubt that the film would have failed utterly without her masterful ministrations. Her performance alone is worth the price of admission.

If Silence edged out Elle as my pick of the week, it’s strictly due to the fact that I can unequivocally recommend Scorsese’s film to a wide audience, while I’m not quite sure to whom Verhoeven’s is intended to appeal. I can say with absolute certainty that it ranks among the damnedest films I’ve seen, which also places it among my favorites almost by default. The easily offended need not apply, and interested moviegoers should be forewarned that Elle will leave viewers with more questions than answers. As soon as I figure out what I really think about this film, I’ll be sure to let you all know. Rated R for violence involving sexual assault, disturbing sexual content, some grisly images, brief graphic nudity and language. French with English subtitles.

Now Playing at Grail Moviehouse.